The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
A grower benefits from healthy soil. Maintaining healthy soil often includes accurately tracking the amounts of nutrients, such as nitrate, in the soil. The amount of nitrate or another type of nutrient in soil can vary with the location within a field, sampling time, environmental conditions, or soil physical characteristics, with soil type, moisture, and temperature having a significant effect in particular.
One common approach for measuring the concentration level of a particular soil element involves collecting a sample of soil from a field, sending the soil sample to a laboratory, and receiving a measurement of the concentration level from the laboratory after a few days or even weeks. However, the concentration level can change quickly over time due to the various factors noted above. For example, the amount of nitrate is expected to decrease by several folds during shipping from the field to the laboratory. Thus, the measurement obtained from the laboratory may not accurately reflect the concentration level of the particular soil element at the time when the soil sample was taken.